


Flying Arrows

by pynchs



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Insecure Alec Lightwood, shadowhunters headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 06:55:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5957887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pynchs/pseuds/pynchs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night after they return from Magnus's place is the night Alec finally confesses his sexuality to Isabelle on the floor of the training room at three in the morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flying Arrows

**Author's Note:**

> There's a good chance that this is trash but I just wanted to post something like this before the episode tomorrow.

The training room was quiet except for the sound of wind coming from an arrow whooshing across the room and the sound it made when it hit the target. When they came back from Magnus’s, everyone had went silently to their rooms except for Alec, and Izzy, who had stayed behind to talk to him. She had tried to get him to talk to her, and when that proved useless she had told him she was there for him and retreated to her room, her heels clicking all the way up the stars. After that Alec had went up to his own room, changing his shadowhunter gear for an oversized sweater and a pair of black and gray plaid pajama pants. He had laid in his bed for an hour in the dark, tossing and turning, bad thoughts plaguing his mind. The more he sat there the more his mind wandered to the places he didn’t allow, to the emotions he kept bottled up. 

By the time tears began to well up in his eyes he was out of his bed and pacing down to the training room. He always chased off his thoughts with a bow in his hand and that was what he needed to do. Not think. 

He wasn’t sure how many times he reloaded that bow, shooting center target repeatedly, until he heard footsteps behind him. Alec spun, turning to face Isabelle, her hair in two braids wearing a black pajama set. She looked him over, finally locking eyes with him, and her eyes held so much concern and emotion that he couldn’t handle it. It hurt too much to look at her. Part of him knew that she knew about the stuff he kept hidden inside himself, but it was too much. “Alec.” She began, placing a hand on his arm to steady his bow. He hadn’t even realized he had begun shaking, but both of his hands were shaking violently. 

Without warning, tears began to sting his eyes. “What?” He asked, trying to will his tears to disappear. “I just couldn’t sleep, I’m fine.” 

Isabelle sighed, taking the bow out of his tremoring hands and placing it on the table. “Alec,” She began, exasperated. Whenever she was upset she would repeat his name at the beginning of every sentence, as if she needed to point out that she was talking specifically to him. It made no sense, really, it was nearly three in the morning and there was no one else around. There were tears in her eyes as well. “You have to talk to me. I’ve let you dwell on your feelings for too long and you need to let it out.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He replied, adrenaline and fear coursing through his veins. Maybe this was what a panic attack felt like, although he had come to believe that only mundane got anxiety, as it was a sign of weakness. Maybe he was weak. How much longer could he go on like this before he crumbled? 

The scene at Magnus’s entered his mind, the demon, the memory of Jace, who he loved most in the world. Alec had broken the circle, lost any chance at Clary ever regaining her memories. He had built up a distaste for Valentine’s daughter but they needed her memories to find him. Alec had put every shadowhunter at risk tonight. Deep down he didn’t think he deserved to be a shadowhunter, didn’t deserve to be buried in the City of Bones, didn’t deserve to have these sacred runes burned into his skin. “Izzy, I don’t even think about it.” His voice was deep and scared and sounded unfamiliar and alien to himself. It didn’t sound as if he spoke it. He felt like a scared animal.

“You bottle up your emotions. Please tell me, you could tell me anything.” Isabelle urged, taking his still quivering hand and pulling him to the training room floor, the two of them sitting cross legged. He felt like a puppet or a marionette, not in control of his own movements and actions. 

This was the most he’d talked about his emotions ever and Alec was already overwhelmed. “You know the memory the demon took, of someone I loved most in the world.” He began. Isabelle nodded, and there was a small spark of hurt and disappointment flickering in her face. He remembered the memory Isabelle lost, it was of himself. “It was of Jace, and I just. I just.”

All he needed to do was say it out loud, say any of it out loud, but words seemed trapped in his mind. All his life Alec had tried to be a model shadowhunter, always following the rules, sticking to what his parents said. As Max, his younger brother, grew up he had always been the boring sibling while Isabelle was fun and taught Max so many amazing things. Nothing he did was ever good enough. “I’m so disgusting, i don’t even deserve to be a shadowhunter.” Tears had begun to sting his throat, welling up in his eyes again. “And I try to bury it, but it’s so hard Izzy, and I hate myself for it.” He could feel tears begin to drip down his face, his chest hurt. 

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of Alec. And no one deserves to be a shadowhunter more than you. You can be who you are, you can say it.” Isabelle replied, and there were tears in her eyes as well. For over a year she had known, as Alec grew more distant. She knew when he looked at Jace, or when his cheeks began to burn when their father made homophobic remarks at the dwindling family dinners they shared. She knew when the tears formed in his eyes after him and Jace tracked Magnus together and she knew when he panicked and broke the demon circle. Isabelle had known and she had been waiting. There was no one in the whole entire world that was more worthy of the shadowhunter title than Alec was, and the fact that he felt unworthy broke Izzy’s heart. 

Now there was no going back, there was no more pretending that he didn’t know his identity. Alec took in a big breath, feeling anxiety pounding in his stomach. He had never felt more mundane, more vulnerable, than he did right now. “I think I’m gay.” Alec said, and the wind felt as if it were knocked out of him, as if he had been punched in the gut. He felt like all the demons and monsters he had ever killed were back and forcing him to relive his worst childhood nightmare. His face was wet and his heart was pounding harder than it ever had on a hunt. “Oh god Izzy what am I going to do?”

Isabelle placed her hand on her older brother’s hand, stopping it from tremoring once again. “First you’re going to listen when I say that I love you no matter what.” He nodded in response. “Second, you’re going to talk to Jace tomorrow, he doesn’t know why you freaked out so much over the memory. I’m not saying you have to, but you can talk to him about this.” Alec nodded again, although that seemed a lot harder than believing that Isabelle would love him no matter what. He had known that from the start.

“And third, my dear brother, you’re going to call Magnus Bane because he was totally flirting with you tonight at his place.”

Alec’s face flushed a deep shade of red. “No he wasn’t.” He denied. Someone like Magnus Bane, flirting with him? 

“Are you kidding?” Isabelle exclaimed laughing, and already the anxiety coursing through Alec’s body was diminishing. “He said Michelangelo was good in bed and then looked directly at you! And he also asked me if you were more of a flowers or cologne man. Please, he was so into you he might as well have had a shirt with the words ‘I’m into Alec Lightwood’ printed on it.”

When Alec finally went to sleep, after learning that Isabelle had given Magnus his number before she left, he finally allowed himself to wander the part of his brain he always kept locked. 


End file.
